"You'll revive." Laurie turned to Rodney, who was now facing them. "All right, old man?" "I guess so," gulped Rodney. There was no self-consciousness in his manner. He had passed through blazing hell in the last twenty minutes, and he did not care who knew it. "Then," urged Laurie, seeking to divert him, "you may give me the details Shaw had to skip. How the dickens did you happen to start this frame-up, anyhow?" "How much did Shaw tell you?" Rodney tried to speak naturally. "That the whole adventure was a plant you and Epstein had fixed up to keep me out of mischief," Laurie repeated, patiently. "He explained that you had engaged a company to put it over, headed by Miss Mayo, who is a friend of Mrs. Ordway, and who has a burning ambition to go on the stage. He said you promised her that if she made a success of it, she was to have the leading role in our next play. That's about all he told me." He did not look at Doris as he spoke, and she observed the omission, though she dared not look at him. Also, she caught the coldness of his rich young voice. She hid her face in her hands. "That's all I know," ended Laurie. "But I want to know some more. Whose bright little idea was this, in the first place?" "Mrs. Ordway's." "Louise's!" Unconsciously Laurie's face softened. "Yes. I went to see her one day," Bangs explained, "and I mentioned that we couldn't get any work out of you till you'd had the adventure you were insisting on. Mrs. Ordway said, 'Well, why don't you give him an adventure?' That," confessed Rodney, "started me off." "Obviously," corroborated his friend. "So it was Louise's idea. Poor Louise! I hope she got some fun out of it." "You bet she did!" corroborated Bangs, eagerly. "I kept her posted every day. She said it was more fun than a play, and that it was keeping her alive." "Humph! Well, go on. Tell me how it started." Laurie was smiling. If the little episode just ended had been, as it were, a bobolink singing to Louise Ordway during her final days on earth, it was not he who would find fault with the bird or with those who had set it singing. "The day we saw the caretaker in the window across the park," continued Rodney, "and I realized how interested you were, it occurred to me that we'd engage that studio and put Miss Mayo into it. Miss Mayo lives in Richmond, Virginia, and she had been making a big hit in amateur theatricals. She wanted to get on the legitimate stage, as Shaw told you; so Mrs. Ordway suggested that Epstein and I try her out--" "Never mind all that!" interrupted Laurie. "Perhaps later Miss Mayo will tell me about it herself." Bangs accepted the snub without resentment. "Epstein thought it was a corking idea," he went on, "especially as we expected to try out some of the scenes I have in mind for the new play. But the only one you let us really get over was the suicide scene in the first act. You balled up everything else we attempted," he ended with a sigh. Laurie smiled happily.